sales tax plug in installation user uide - magento...2017/06/08 · go to magento marketplace, log...

SALES TAX PLUG-IN: INSTALLATION & USER GUIDE

CONFIDENTIAL

EXACTOR MAGENTO 2 PLUG-IN USER GUIDE

2017 © EXACTOR CONFIDENTIAL

TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................................................... 3 INITIALIZING EXACTOR PLUG-IN ........................................................................................................... 4

Installing the Plug-in ...................................................................................................................... 4 Uninstalling the Plug-in .................................................................................................................. 9 Exactor Account Setup ................................................................................................................. 11 Product Mapping ......................................................................................................................... 15

Choosing a Source of SKU ......................................................................................................... 15 Accessing Product Mapping Page ............................................................................................ 15 Assigning an EUC...................................................................................................................... 16 Unassigning an EUC ................................................................................................................. 17 Exactor Shipping Methods Mapping ........................................................................................ 18

Entity Exemptions Management .................................................................................................. 20 Creating an Entity Exemption ................................................................................................... 20 Disabling an Entity Exemption .................................................................................................. 23

CALCULATING TAX WITH EXACTOR .................................................................................................... 25 Calculation Requests .................................................................................................................... 25 Calculate Request – Customer View ............................................................................................ 25

Reviewing Tax Calculate Request Breakdown .......................................................................... 27 Calculate Request – Admin View ................................................................................................. 27 Commit Tax .................................................................................................................................. 30

Reviewing Tax Commit Breakdown .......................................................................................... 31 Shipping To Multiple Addresses ................................................................................................... 32 Refunding the Taxes ..................................................................................................................... 35

Canceling Order ........................................................................................................................ 35 Issuing a Credit Memo ............................................................................................................. 36



Introduction

This Exactor plug-in was developed to enable businesses to incorporate tax calculations from within their invoice and sales orders. Once installed and set up, user does not need to perform any additional functions to obtain sales tax. The tax is calculated and seamlessly displayed on accounting forms, and, because the plug-in communicates with the Exactor System, sales tax returns are generated without merchant having to transfer data from one system to another.

This Exactor Magento Plug-in was developed to enable businesses to incorporate and benefit from the Exactor sales tax compliance service within their Magento shopping cart.

After installation, neither a merchant, nor a customer, needs to perform any additional functions to obtain sales taxes.

The taxes are calculated and seamlessly displayed in the Magento shopping cart, and because the shopping cart communicates with the Exactor System, the Exactor System generates tax returns without a merchant having to transfer data from one system to another.

This User Guide provides information specifically for installing and using the Exactor Sales Tax Compliance Plug-in in the Magento Shopping Cart Community & Enterprise versions starting from 2.1.

More detailed information about the Exactor Sales Tax Compliance Service (including setting up an account, managing the account, reports and filing returns) are found in the Exactor User Guide, which can be downloaded and reviewed from the “Help” tab on the Exactor Merchant Control Panel (merchant.exactor.com).

Note for Magento 1.x users. Customers using Magento versions below 2.1 should refer to Exactor Magento User Guide, and not the current document, as plug-ins are working differently in these systems.

Note for Accounting Program Users. If you have QuickBooks, or other accounting programs or ERP systems, transactions from the Magento shopping cart can be downloaded into the accounting program. If the accounting program is used for reconciliation of all transactions, the user should download and install the Exactor QB plug-in as well. All transactions from Magento shopping cart processed by Exactor System for calculation purposes (regardless of whether sales taxes were applied), can be downloaded into the accounting software (e.g. QuickBooks), thus effectively bridging between the Magento shopping cart and the accounting and ERP systems.

Installation Note: Before scheduling the installation of Exactor plug-in, fill in the pre-installation questionnaire regarding your system version and environment. This questionnaire will be shared with you by Exactor technical support team member.



Initializing Exactor Plug-in

The Exactor Magento Plug-in requires downloading, installing, setting up the plug-in within the Magento shopping cart, and finally configuring up an account at the Exactor Merchant Control Panel. This section of the User Guide guides a user step by step through this process.

INSTALLING THE PLUG-IN

Go to Magento Marketplace, log in under your account.

Note: Do NOT try installing the plug-in directly to the file system of your Magento server. It may result in errors and the plug-in malfunction. Please rely on Magento Component Manager, as explained below.

Click Search icon:

In the search field, type Exactor and click Enter:

Click on Exactor icon to proceed:

Add Exactor extension to your cart:

https://marketplace.magento.com/



Proceed to checkout:

Click Place order at the bottom of the Order Review page:

You should see a confirmation message:



To install Exactor plug-in, go to your Magento 2 admin main menu -> System -> Web Setup Wizard:

Click Component Manager.

Make sure to sign in to Magento Marketplace:

Sync (1) your Exactor purchase and click Install (2):

Locate Exactor and click Install:



Start the readiness check:

Once the checklist is passed, click Next. Otherwise, correct any Magento issues and re-run the check.

Create a back for critical system entities:



Click Next once backup is complete:

Install Exactor extension:

Installation will start and logs will be displayed:

The process will take some time, depending upon your hardware configuration. It should finish with a success message:

You may proceed to Exactor Account Setup now.



UNINSTALLING THE PLUG-IN

To uninstall Exactor plug-in, go to your Magento 2 admin main menu -> System -> Web Setup Wizard:

Click Component Manager.

In the list of installed components, locate Exactor.

You can select Disable to temporarily switch the plug-in off. You can go back to enable it back at any time.

If you decide to remove it completely, click Uninstall. Start the readiness check:



Click Next:

Create a backup for critical system entities:

Click Next once backup is complete:

Click Next:

Click Uninstall:



A log will be displayed:


EXACTOR ACCOUNT SETUP

Once the Exactor Magento Plug-in is installed, the Exactor Merchant Account information must be configured. This setup is necessary to make sure that the Magento Shopping Cart communicates correctly and accurately with the Exactor System to calculate and store transaction information.

In the Magento Admin Panel, go to the System menu -> Stores:

Select Configuration:



Go to Exactor Sales Tax –> Exactor Account Setup:

This opens the settings page. Fill in the form:



• Exactor Account Information (1): Account #, User name, Password. The account number issued by Exactor when you sign up for the services.

• Business Address (2). Exactor uses this information as the Ship From the addresses when determining taxes on transactions, so there must be no errors in the address. Otherwise, Exactor may calculate and file the taxes incorrectly.

• Effective Start Date (3). Specify the date starting from which Exactor will start calculating the sales tax.

• Source of SKU Information (4). Exactor allows users to choose a category used to identify a product. A merchant can use the Magento SKU Field, Attribute Set Name or Tax Class as a source of SKU information. The SKU information is sent to Exactor with each line item and is used for Product Mapping explained below.

• Commit Sales Taxes On (5). The Exactor Magento Plug-in provides users with option of committing the sales transaction to the Exactor Merchant Control Panel never or upon the completion of a sales order, invoice or shipment.



o Order Placement, Shipment, Invoice: Transactions are committed to Exactor per option selected and are used for generating tax returns.

o Never (Calculation Only): Transactions will not be committed to Exactor and will not be used for generating tax returns.

For detailed information on transactions commitment options see Calculation Requests.



PRODUCT MAPPING

After setting up account information, the user should proceed to mapping products to Exactor Unified Codes ("EUC"). Product Mapping is the term used when it is necessary for the Exactor System to identify the type of products sold to correctly apply taxability rules. Exactor applies its internal Exactor Unified Code ("EUC") to determine which rules apply to a product/service in the given taxing locality. For example, services and products such as clothing and food may have special taxability rate in various locations.

Because different taxes are applied to various product categories, Exactor requires its customers to map any products that may require special taxability rules to the EUCs, so that the Exactor System can provide an accurate calculation in real time without disrupting the transaction flow.

When using the Exactor tax compliance service, the internal Magento tax rules are not applied. As part of the set-up process, the Exactor module resets all Magento internal tax rates to 0, to assure there is no conflict with the Exactor processes and tax calculations. Any change that a user makes to this process, such as changing the internal Magento rates, may result in tax calculation errors.

Product Mapping is performed from within Magento Admin Panel. As part of the tax calculation process, the Exactor Magento plug-in transmits the SKU information for each product in the shopping cart to the Exactor System. A source of SKU information should be configured in the Magento Admin Panel, and then input to the Exactor Merchant Control Panel (merchant.exactor.com) mapped to an appropriate EUC. Based on how a product is mapped on the Exactor Merchant Website, the Exactor System then applies appropriate tax rules and rates to each separate line item.

Choosing a Source of SKU

Before proceeding with Product Mapping, you need to define the source of Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) – item types.

In the Exactor Account setup, a user configures which Magento product information is sent to Exactor into the SKU field. A merchant can choose a source of SKU information to be sent to Exactor from the following: SKU Field; Attribute Set Name or Tax Class.

To change your settings, please go to Setting Up the Exactor Magento Plug-in and proceed to the main settings form:

Selecting “Tax Class” does not cause Exactor to follow the tax rules defined within the Magento Admin Panel, but rather copies the Tax Class information into the Exactor SKU field to be used for product mapping. Taxes are calculated based on the EUC that is mapped to the “Tax Class” information, not the actual Tax Class.

Accessing Product Mapping Page

To start Product Mapping, open Magento Admin Panel Main Menu -> Stores (1) -> Exactor Product Mapping (2):



It opens a page with all your Magento items:

Assigning an EUC

Open the Product Mapping Page:

Select an item to map (1). Please note than you can select multiple items at a time.

Expand the EUC tree on the right and select the appropriate node (2). Now click Actions drop-down menu on the left and select “Assign EUC Code” (3):



Click OK. You should see a confirmation message:

Once Product Mapping is complete, the Exactor plug-in will include the product information as a part of the transaction data. The product EUC-code will be used by Exactor logic engine when determining taxability, tax rates and tax thresholds of each line item. You will see the selected source of SKU as well as the EUC-code assigned to it as a part of the transaction data provided in the Exactor-generated reports. These are available on your Exactor Merchant Control Panel (merchant.exactor.com), under Reports tab (1):

Click “View” to see transaction details, including the SKU, item description and respective EUC-code assigned.

For more information on EUCs and Product Mapping, see Product Mapping section in the Exactor User Guide, which can be downloaded and reviewed from the “Help” tab on the Exactor Merchant Control Panel (merchant.exactor.com).

Unassigning an EUC

To unassign an EUC, Access Product Mapping Page:

Select an item (1). Please note than you can select multiple items at a time.



Click Actions and Unassign EUC code(-s) (2):

Click OK to proceed. You should see a confirmation message:

Exactor Shipping Methods Mapping

Exactor Magento plug-in uses special EUC-codes to associate with shipping couriers. To set them up, navigate to the Main Menu -> Stores -> Exactor Shipping Mapping:

You should see the page with Carries from Magento:

To assign an EUC-code to carrier, double-click on its name to see the drop-down list:

Click on Save just below the list to accept changes:



Once completed, you should see the list of carriers with their respective EUC-codes:

To complete Exactor Magento plug-in setup, please proceed to Entity Exemption Management section.



ENTITY EXEMPTIONS MANAGEMENT

Creating an Entity Exemption

The Exactor Magento plug-in allows the user to apply buyer’s exemptions to any given transaction. For every customer, you should create an ECN (Exemption Certificate Number) which is required when your customers file their federal taxes for the year they don’t have coverage.

First, you will need to set up a personal exemption in Magento for your customers. Navigate to your Magento Admin Panel Main Menu -> Customers -> All Customers:

You will see a list of Magento customers:

Pick up your customer who is sales tax exempt (1) and click Edit (2). Proceed to Customer page.

Click “Create Exemption”. You should see Customer Exemption page with several sections.

Fill in Customer Details, such as the Customer Name and Address, Federal ID and Telephone Number:



Make sure “Enable Exemption” is set to “Yes.”

Scroll down to get to the Exempt State Details section and fill in the following details regarding the USA clients:



• Exempt box (1) – leave it checked to apply exemption to the given state.

• State (2) – choose state to apply exemption to. You can add multiple states by Clicking Add (8). You can delete a state by clicking the recycle bin icon (7).

• Exemption ID (3) as issued by the state authorities.

• Exemption Reason (4) from the drop-down list.

• Effective Start Date (5) of the client’s exemption certificate. The default date is set to current.

• Effective End Date (6) of the client’s exemption certificate. By default, it is set to 12/31/9999, i.e. as if the certificate never expires.

If you operate in Canada or internationally, fill in the sections below:

Click “Save” in the upper right corner to generate an exemption certificate:


Once an exemption has been added, the “Create Exemption” button on the Customer Page would change to “Update Exemption”:

Please note that you can see all your exemptions on Exactor Merchant Control Panel (merchant.exactor.com) under Exemption Management tab -> List Exemptions (1):

https://merchant.exactor.com/



You should see the customer you marked as exempt (2) on Magento Admin Panel side.

Once the ECN-number is generated, it will be displayed within transaction details in the “Exemption ID” field.

Transactions with exempt customers typically should have 0 tax.

Pick up a transaction and click View:

If the customer is mapped to any ECN number in the plug-in database, the Exactor plugin inserts the ECN number into the Exemption Id field of the invoice request. Otherwise, Customer Id is inserted.

For more information on ECN-numbers and Entity Exemptions management on the Exactor Merchant Control panel, please refer to the corresponding chapter of the Exactor User Guide.

Disabling an Entity Exemption

To disable an entity exemption, open the Customer Page in Magento Admin Panel and click Update Exemption:

At the bottom of Customer Details page, set Enable Exemption to “No”:



Click “Save” in the upper right corner to generate an exemption certificate:


To make sure the exemption is updated, go to https://merchant.exactor.com and select Exemption Management -> List Exemptions:

Exemption status in the “Active” column should now be set to “False” instead of “True.” The exemption certificate will also be changed to False if it expires.

Please note that exemption certificate is not deleted from Exactor. If you need to re-upload a certificate for the same customer, please Create an Entity Exemption and a new ECN-number would be assigned to them.




Calculating Tax with Exactor

CALCULATION REQUESTS

Exactor distinguishes between two types of transactions: Tax Calculation Request and Committed Transaction.

On the Exactor Account Setup, a user configures the Commit taxes on setting. The Exactor Magento Plug-in gives a user an option of committing the sales transaction to the Exactor Merchant Account on completion of a sales order, on creation of an invoice, on shipment, or a user may choose to only calculate taxes for the order.

TAX CALCULATION REQUEST. In this mode, the Exactor System performs an accurate tax calculation based on transaction data added in the shopping cart on checkout. The transaction data and tax information are stored in the Exactor System, but are NOT used for generating tax returns or filing purposes.

COMMITTED SALES TRANSACTION. In this mode taxes are calculated, and the transaction data and taxes are written into the Exactor System, and are stored for generating tax returns or filing purposes.

For more information about committed transactions and calculation requests, see the Chapter “Reports” in the Exactor User Guide.

CALCULATE REQUEST – CUSTOMER VIEW

After the Exactor Magento Plug-In is installed, taxes are calculated and displayed as an integral part of the Magento shopping cart.

Exactor plug-in starts working after a customer places an order and goes into their Magento shopping cart.

To see this estimate, they need to complete all Magento steps and get to the Proceed to Checkout step.

As a regular customer, select an item, add to your cart and open the cart:

Confirm shipping address:



The Review & Payments page will show tax within Order Summary:

After you click “Place Order”, you should see a confirmation message:



Reviewing Tax Calculate Request Breakdown

In Magento 2, at any stage of order before placing it as customer or submitting as admin, you can view tax breakdown at Exactor Merchant Panel (https://merchant.exactor.com).

The actual tax estimate may change every time you modify the cart by adding or removing items, shipping methods and billing/shipping address.

Go to Reports -> Tax Calculation Requests to find your transaction:

Click View to see details:

For more information, please see the section Detailed tax Calculation Request from Exactor User Guide, available from Exactor Merchant Panel (https://merchant.exactor.com).

CALCULATE REQUEST – ADMIN VIEW

As a Magento admin, you can initiate a tax calculation request. The following entities support tax calculation: Orders, Invoices, Credit Memos.

Let’s use sales order as an example.

Go to Magento main menu -> Sales -> Orders.





It opens order page.

Click Create New Order.

Double-click a customer:

Click Add Products. Select a product and click Add Selected Product(s) to Order:



You should see your order page now:

Scroll down to see the shipping options:

Tax is already estimated, but it will be re-calculated once you pick up a shipping method:



Click Submit Order to finalize. You should see a confirmation:

You can see Tax Breakdown now.

COMMIT TAX

To use the transaction data for filing with Exactor, you need to commit it. A transaction can be committed upon placing an order, shipment or an invoice. Alternatively, you can set this option to never commit. Please see the item Commit Sales Taxes On in Exactor Account Setup.

As an example, let us set the option Commit Sales Taxes On to Order Placement:



In this case, when a customer completes all checkout steps, as in Calculate Request – Customer View, the transaction will be committed once they click the Place Order button:

Alternatively, as an admin you can generate Calculate Request and click Submit Order at the end of the checkout.

Reviewing Tax Commit Breakdown

Once your transaction is committed, you can view tax breakdown at Exactor Merchant Panel (https://merchant.exactor.com).

Go to Reports (1) -> Committed Transactions (2) to find your transaction:

Select View (3) to see tax details:

This transaction is now used by Exactor for generating tax returns.




SHIPPING TO MULTIPLE ADDRESSES

Magento can split a purchase, allowing a seller to ship different line items to different shipping addresses.

Exactor Magento plug-in calculates taxes for each line item separately, determining the taxes owing for the separate line items.

To enable this feature, the customer should click on the “Checkout with Multiple Addresses” button when proceeding to checkout.

If a customer has only one address listed in their account, they are prompted to enter another shipping address.

If a customer has several shipping addresses listed, they can proceed to match the recipients with products selecting a proper shipping address for each line item.

Select address for each item, then click Update Qty & Addresses (1) and Back to Shopping Cart (2).



Select Shipping Method for each address:

Click “Continue to Billing information”.



Afterwards, click “Go to Review Your Order” button.

Scroll down to Shipping Information section to see that there are sub-sections for each item in the order and separate tax estimate:

On the “Review Order” page, the taxes for each line item are displayed separately.

The different taxes for the individual line items are also displayed in the Exactor Merchant Control Panel. These are included in the different sales tax returns accordingly.



REFUNDING THE TAXES

Canceling Order

When an order is canceled, it results in a credit of the calculated taxes.

To make a refund, open Magento Admin Panel Main Menu, navigate to Sales -> Orders:

Then choose the specific order that needs to be refunded.

Select Actions -> Cancel:

The sales order will be cancelled, and the taxes will be refunded in full.



You can check refund on Exactor Merchant Control Panel (https://merchant.exactor.com), under Reports (1) -> Committed Transactions (2):

The refund will be marked in red (3) and have negative amount.

In Magento, the order status will be set to “Canceled.”

Issuing a Credit Memo

The Exactor Magento plug-in can also refund the taxes when a credit memo has been issued against an invoice.

To make it work correctly on credit memos, make sure they have been issued against a sales order with single, and not multiple invoices.

You should go to each individual invoice to create the Credit Memo.

To create a Credit Memo from Magento Admin Main Menu, navigate to Sales (1) -> Invoices (2):

Select an invoice applied to an order:

Open the order by clicking its hyperlink:




Click “Credit Memo”:

New Memo page will open:

Scroll down to the bottom to see tax details. Click Refund:




In Magento, this Order Status will change to “Closed.”

You can check the refund on Exactor Merchant Control Panel (https://merchant.exactor.com), under Reports (1) -> Committed Transactions (2):

The refund will be marked in red (3).




Thank you for using the Exactor Sales Tax Compliance Service and the Exactor Sage 100 plug-in. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact your Exactor representative, or email us at: [email protected]

With over ten (10) years of experience automating sales tax compliance, Exactor is the premier provider of Sales Tax Compliance Services. Exactor’s fully automated SaaS System has been revolutionizing transaction-related tax compliance by providing an enterprise level solution for secure, reliable and accurate sales tax compliance efforts, including calculating taxes in all commercial environments, record keeping, tax processing and the generating and filing of tax returns. Exactor’s dynamic Software Suite offers a simple and seamless integration of the Exactor Sales Tax Calculation Module into any business and transaction platform where real time calculation is required. The Exactor engine will then automate the process of generating and filing the returns, so that the user can focus on their sales and running the business, trusting Exactor to manage their transaction taxes. The Exactor suite offers a high level of automation, rapid delivery, and highly scalable results, ensuring an on time, on budget, enterprise-class tax solution to fit the needs of any business.

To learn more, visit us at www.exactor.com Exactor ® is a registered trademark owned by Exactor, Inc.

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.exactor.com/

sales tax plug in installation user uide - magento...2017/06/08 · go to magento marketplace, log...

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